Page 16 of A LIttle Christmas: Samm
Samuel is staring at him. “Are you joking?”
He’s glad it’s dark so Samuel can’t see the blush on his cheeks. “No. I mean….it would end the same way no matter who was tied up?”
Samuel abruptly laughs. “I suppose that’s true. I think that might be the most pragmatic answer I’ve ever heard.”
“I think I’ve just been insulted. Our sex life was non-existent enough that I wasn’t trying to get complicated. If you’re starving you don’t complain that you get white bread when you wanted rye.”
Samuel huffs in amusement.
He imagines using handcuffs now. Samuel would be the one wearing them, of course. So he’d be available and willing. Samuel could pretend not to want sex but be unable to escape. Consensual non-consent. He’d called it CNC in his email, and Bryan had needed to do another Google search until he’d figured out what the acronym meant.
“What would complicated have looked like?” Samuel asks.
It takes Bryan a moment to place the comment and come up with an answer. “I don’t even know. Maybe… maybe more like the things you’re looking for? A lot of giving and taking and connection? If that’s possible. What you want seems to require a lot of vulnerability. Our relationship was too fractured by that point.”
“I know people who have that. It is possible,” Samuel says, but he slumps back in his seat and looks out the window, which makes Bryan think he isn’t certain.
“Well,” Samuel finally says, “It doesn’t sound like you were very compatible. Was the sex ever good?”
No shame or hesitation. This is how other people talk about sex, he thinks, and wonders how he’s gotten so out of touch. The discussion isn’t difficult. It’s slightly uncomfortable, but he is also aroused, so it can’t be all bad.
But this sort of conversation never went well with his wife. And he’d grown up in an environment that was very repressive.
“No, I don’t suppose it was. Lots of, well, she didn’t like what we did. And I didn’t like badgering her. I suppose it was a knock to my confidence.” That’s a massive understatement. It has shaped the rest of his life. “I should have made you sign an NDA,” he jokes.
He isn’t really joking.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Demarco. That sounds awful. But it also sounds like something specific to the two of you, and you both being a bad fit. You’re a good, kind man. You’re handsome and successful, you spend a lot of time in the gym. I can’t imagine you intend to be alone forever? No one gets the benefit of all that hard work?”
It takes him a moment to understand what Samuel must mean. “It isn’t a benefit. I work out because I’m used to it. I played water polo in high school and college. I still swim a lot, but now I do weights, too. It’s stress relief, I suppose.” He doesn’t do it to be wanted. He understands that women look at him, but isn’t that normal?
“Well, you look fantastic. You could have anyone you wanted. You owe it to the world to get out there. As you can tell from my experience, it’s rough out there for single people.”
“Well, thank you for the ego boost,” he says dryly.
“I bet you’ve always been hot, and so you just don’t realize how good looking you are.”
“I don’t know,” he says, and isn’t very concerned with the answer. He’d gotten a girlfriend in high school, and he’d done his best to make it work for as long as he could. They’d married, they’d divorced. The end.
“You might need therapy. No offense.”
“None taken. But, I’m fine as I am. This way, no one is deprived and no one is disappointed.” He just doesn’t want tosee another woman crying, doesn’t want to feel that rejection as his advances are spurned. He can take care of himself.
“Disappointed? Deprived? Those are the worst two words to use when discussing sex. I feel much better about telling you about Ballbuster now.”
That startles a laugh out of him. “The name is terrifying.”
“Well, we wouldn’t dothat. I’m down for a good spanking, especially if it’s with some roleplay. But I’m not really into a lot of pain. I like being sore, having that reminder of what we did, and what my body is capable of, but that’s about it. I don’t think of that as pain. Not like ‘squeeze my balls and crush my dick’.That’spain.”
“That’s horrible. He likes that?”
“Well, yeah. But he likes other things, too.”
“The things you like?” Bryan asks, which is probably too vague and betrays his discomfort at how his knowledge has been acquired. Reading something private that wasn’t intended for him.
‘Think of me as a good, earnest boy who everything bad happens to. A perpetual victim who needs to be taken care of, but winds up getting used after a little caretaking. Sitting on Daddy’s lap always has consequences….’
‘I love warming, in any orifice, and objectification and restriction. I’d like to make you comfortable and have been thinking a lot about the best way to give myself to you when we first meet. A way to set the tone for the weekend. Do you have any ideas?’
